Comme de l' eau de Roche
by Berne
Summary: Jack liked to look at the world through a crystal glass: sparkling facets, shifting colours curved in interesting ways. Sparrington.


**Title:** Comme de l' eau de Roche

**Author:** Berne

**Rating: **PG

**Characters: **Sparrington

**Warnings: **Implied slash.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Gore Verbinski, Ted Elliot, and Terry Rossio, various studios including but not limited to First Mate Productions Inc., Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and Walt Disney Pictures. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**AN:** Thank you to my darling Ociwen for the beta.

**Comme de l' eau de Roche**

_**verre de cristal**_

Jack liked to look at the world through a crystal glass: sparkling facets, shifting colours curved in interesting ways. He peered at the commodore's room through it and found that it was almost like looking through a bottle of rum, except there was no soft amber glow with which to paint the world. The Murano crystal was unforgiving, throwing sharp indigoes, azures, scarlets (the colours of Indian silks) across the tabletop. Broken rainbows littered the neat stacks of papers, but when Jack tried to catch one it slipped through his fingers, like the fine sands of time.

The world had depth, had character, had _life_ when looked at through a crystal glass. It had colour and harmony; it had music.

Jack increased the pressure on the glass stem until he could feel the tension singing through the crystal and up his forearm. Without warning, the glass shattered, raining needles of hard ice over the floor.

He licked thoughtfully at the blood beading along his thumb.

_Comme de l' eau de roche._

**_perruque en poudre_ **

It tasted of chalk, laid thick and heavy on his tongue like the morning after a night in Tortuga. He decided against swallowing and spat it out over the commodore's windowsill.

Cautiously, Jack dipped another finger into the pot, his skin instantly coated with a colour that reminded him of his youngest sister, a sickly girl whom had long ago succumbed to the consumption that had stalked her for sixteen years.

And he couldn't help but smirk at the cloud of powder that rose, settling gracefully (and very deliberately) on the commodore's hat, thick and cloying and unnatural.

Jack tossed the pot out of the window.

_**fruit de sucre**_

They said a lot about a person, really. Barbossa and his apples, for instance. All he had wanted was to taste and Jack had found great satisfaction in eating as many of the bastard's coveted fruit as often as possible.

Jack favoured Caribbean bananas and although Anamaria had once said that he only liked them to aid him in his more obscene tales, Jack didn't quite agree. They had other uses and, when properly ripe, they glowed as if lit by their own sun. They were gold and everyone knew pirates could never resist such treasure.

The bedside table had delicacies on it that Jack had never seen on his travels. Fruit filled with sugar. Not dipped in it, but lemon skins and lime skins that were stuffed with sand-like grains. He took a bite, grimacing, and wondered what _that_ said about the commodore.

_**la noire perie**_

Jack should not be looking through this book. It had, after all, been under lock and key, knotted with rope, hidden away in a secret compartment under the commodore's desk. But then he also shouldn't be in the commodore's personal rooms while the man in question was suffering through supper with the Admiral.

Jack's eyes strayed back to the skilfully unbound book where it lay open, balanced on his spread palms.

There were sketches, hundreds of them, but one in particular caught his eye, if only for the bold, oil paint representation. But no, never 'if only'. The commodore was skilled indeed and Jack began to carefully prise the page from the spine. It slipped out of its bindings easily enough; he folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

But not without catching a glimpse of towering masts, a magnificent hull slicing through gunmetal waters, and billowing sails of pitch. It was a near-perfect likeness of the tattoo over Jack's heart.

_**un livre d' etoile**_

A man could live his life by the stars. Jack was glad to see the pages well-worn and crusted with a thin layer of salt that spoke volumes.

The pole star was a regular guide for any sailor worth his salt, and it seemed that the Commodore was no different. Not that Jack had ever doubted him, either, but sometimes he wondered if it was possible to smother a man in duty rather than to let the stars and the sea and the ship take you where they will.

James Norrington stepped into his private rooms and let out a sigh of relief. He removed his wig and coat, and was about to drape them over the nearest chair when his eyes fell upon the shards of a crystal glass embedded in his desktop. White powder -- _wig_-powder -- dusted his hat, which balanced precariously on the windowsill. There were half-eaten fruit; the window was swung open, rippling the curtains in restless waves.

And there, legs kicked up on the table, constellation book propped upon his lap, was Jack Sparrow.

"'Ello, James," he said, flashing a wicked grin. Any anger that James might have had left with his exhaled breath. He smiled slowly, wryly.

"Hello, Jack."


End file.
